


Under The Green Umbrella Trees

by AliPressure



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-19 16:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2395382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliPressure/pseuds/AliPressure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of the hunger that was she was excruciatingly aware of, and the one she didn’t even know existed. And because she feels this era of torment is not ending any time soon, she figures she has time. Time enough to revel in everything she can remember about him. Peeta<br/>-Inspired by When The Day Met The Night by Panic! At The Disco</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**_When the moon fell in love with the sun,_ **

_All was golden in the sky,_

_All was golden when the day met the night_

 

            Days pass before she moves, the rocking chair in in her kitchen sequestering her to every single moment beginning with her father’s death. Prim’s well-being slowly abating until all to see was a pair of hollowed cheekbones, a prominent ribcage.

            Her mother gradually beginning to slip away. She stopped bothering to dress them, to send them to bed. To walk Prim to school. Eventually she forgot how to speak, to feed her children. And just as Katniss does now, she never left the bed, and on bad days she’d refused to eat. To shower. Katniss thinks she’s very much like her mother now.

            Then Katniss began to hunt. She’d brought that first huge load that lasted them almost two weeks. She’d applied for tesserae the first chance she’d gotten. Mrs. Everdeen didn’t notice at first, just let her daughters coax her from bed and into their quaint dining room to a tense, asphyxiating meal.

            And then after tip-toeing around conversations for so long, Prim tried to let loose by joking about the dearth of rabbit on the table. It’d clicked for Mrs. Everdeen then, and she’d risen so rapidly her chair had been thrown backwards. Looking almost remorseful, she looked from her chair to her daughters when a resounding bang had sounded. And then the horror of it all had fully registered and she breezed from the room, leaving scared Prim and a stewing Katniss in her wake.

            She’d met Gale not long after that, having been hunting for more than a month and a half now. She remembered him from the day he’d received recompense for her father’s death, just as he’d done the same. The bond formed by need had died in the same way, spurred on by the grief of father’s lost in the same mine explosion and absence of sustenance, broken by the need for action and more loss.

            And her emotions mingle unintelligibly when he thinks of the boy with the bread. The day that bestowed him his nickname. Of the hunger that was she was excruciatingly aware of, and the one she didn’t even know existed. And because she feels this era of torment is not ending any time soon, she figures she has time. Time enough to revel in everything she can remember about him. _Peeta_.

            If she had the impudence, she’d walk over there, just a house away. Alas, she has neither impudence nor motivation.

            So she keeps to her rocking chair, not rocking, just sitting, relishing thoughts of a time where her limits were pushed, her strength was tested. A time where even at her darkest moments, he was able to brighten things with his big smile and heart, even if she was far from sentient of that then.

            She thinks of Cinna and Finnick, of Effie and her prep team, Wiress, Mags and Castor and Pollux. Lavinia, her mute slave, who, in reality was friendlier than most, despite all she’s been through, all Katniss could have done.

            She also thinks of Madge, whose gift bequeathed her a legend. Instigated a revolution of which Katniss was thrust into the lead role.

            And she thinks of her little duck. The sister she cared for during the better part of five years. Who she wasn’t able to save from a death not so unlike that of their father’s.

            She remembers Prim curled around their mother in the light of dawn, their fair skin and golden tresses wound around each other in the fog of incognizance. Her dainty frame almost taking up no space in her school outfit that is a size too big. The safety pin holding her skirt whilst the back of her shirt remained to be tucked in.

            Peppermints and pigtails and big blue eyes. That’s all it takes before Katniss finally gives in to the swell of her heart in her chest, allows a tear drop to glide swiftly free because even though her house may have been bugged by Snow, miniscule microphones and cameras recording her every movement and sound for his awaiting eyes, there is no one left to watch her. And albeit, now is her at her worst, she probably wouldn’t have kept them in if there was someone behind those cameras.

            Because she had watched her sister die as she was cataleptic mere yards away and she was supposed to help her, protect her, bring her home and she failed to do any of that and it _hurts_.

            And considering this era of torment is most definitely not over yet, she continues to cry for what feels like years more.


	2. He Couldn't Get Out

#### Well, he was just hanging around

#### Then he fell in love and he didn't know how

#### But he couldn't get out

 

            Peeta begins to bake. As many different scents waft throughout the Victor’s Village, he thinks of the home this place used to be. When it was occupied by five souls than just the empty space he takes up. And when his heart begins to clench at the memories, he ceases his toiling and makes straight for Haymitch.

            He didn’t used to believe in drowning his sorrows in liquor, but even in these past eighteen years, he’s yet to find out which is worse: loss and sentiment, or lack thereof.

            Is it better to feel pain or nothing at all?

            So, he makes his way for Haymitch’s residence, his motives are only to find the answer to that question.

 

            Without a word, he lets Haymitch lead him inside because most days he doesn’t even have to say what’s wrong. He’s either worried about Katniss or lamenting his parents and the only reason he would come to Haymitch for succor is because he is afraid that if he buys the alcohol himself, he may find himself a more toxic habit than leaving the window open at night.

            The vile liquid burns its way down his throat and into his stomach, but it’s little to suffer in comparison to the desperate ache he feels deepening the hole in his heart.

            And as things seem to speed and blur before his eyes as inebriation scorches its way into his consciousness, Haymitch’s lips move, but all he hears is the blood flowing through his ears as if someone has gripped them between their fists. He gets oddments of words like “girl” and “dead,” but of their meaning, he gets no more than a faint impression of disappointment. And because Peeta is tired of disappointing people, he rises from his seat mumbling something akin to “I have a cake in the oven,” and stumbles back home.

            He intends to make it home, but the looming residence sandwiched between his and Haymitch’s stops him in his tracks. He makes it to the right of the house, catching sight of Katniss through her window. In his stupor, he notices merely the silhouette of a lanky cat in her arms, a faraway look in her eyes as she absentmindedly strokes the coat.

            He wants to yell to her, yell at her, to claim her attention and never lose grasp of it. He wants to take her up in his arms and feel her heart yearning for him as it pulses heavily in her chest. He wants to bake for her and soothe her muscles after a day in the woods. The dark side of him, the one who still gripes for her death and clings to the venom clouding his brain in his vulnerable state, wants to storm the house, tie her up and spur her blood from where it hides under her skin.

            But the majority of him, the parts of him running on white liquor and nothing left to lose want his nightmares to become reality, the ones in which she kills him because the venom thinks there’s no fun in letting her do that herself and he thinks that she needs time to heal despite the eleven years he’s already waited to truly love her. To be loved by her.


	3. HER EYES SAVED HIS LIFE

##### When the moon found the sun

##### He looked like he was barely hanging on

##### But her eyes saved his life

 

            Katniss doesn’t expect to run outside and see Peeta. She didn’t _want_ to see anyone, but as it was him of all people was just icing on the very burnt, very dry cake. She startled, and so did he, though he shouldn’t have considering it was her property he was on. At the sight of her, he wanted to yank the plants out, apologize, and leave. But she was gone before he could react, his cheeks hot though his gloved hand still held fast to the Primroses. When she was out of sight, he kept planting, despite the coiling feeling in his stomach at being caught, even though he’s not sure what he’s done wrong.

            He stalks home afterwards, thinking, knowing, wishing he could have done more. But he was startled and he was slow. And as he spoke it was as if she hadn’t recognized him. But he tries to dismiss that, because he doesn’t even recognize himself.

            He thinks he bakes more than necessary, which is true. Batches of sugar cookies and breads of all flavors and even cheese buns. Though, it is the cakes that he values most. He spends the most time on those.

            As the icing literally slips from the bag, utterly lickable in its creamy glory, his mind wanders to many things—that tantalizing white strip pulled with his name on it that started all of this; his family, their essences lingering in the sweet smells of dough rising in the oven, chocolate chips nearly blending with the crumbly cookie they’re coated in; he thinks of Katniss of course, of how easy it could be to walk straight to her home, pull her into his arms and never release her. But even as he thinks of Katniss, he thinks of himself. Of how easy it would be to give in to the venom. And that part of him fantasizes not of what it would be like to grip that symbolic braid in his hands but of how her skin would taste when it was coated in her blood.

            And the thought causes his heart to quicken, Quicken because of the morbidity of it. Quicken because of how frequent he seems to think of her blood on his hands. Quickens because he likes it.

As much as he wants to love her, he wants to hurt Katniss Everdeen.

He wants to feel her ruby-kissed blood slip through his fingers like liquid pearl.

He wants to hear her shrill screams piercing the air, pleading tainting her lips because he wants so badly to make Katniss Everdeen feel pain.

            Quickens because when he comes back from his stupor, every single cookie and cake is done up in the Mockingjay’s likeliness. All done up in red.

 

            And at night, he isn’t able to tell when he’s dreaming or lost to the venom.

 

            The furthest Katniss makes it to the woods is the edge of the meadow, directly behind Peeta’s house. And even though she wants to say it’s because he leaves his porch light on, she knows that’s not the truth. This is the closest she can get to him at the moment—he needs time, and so does she, and she wants him to be better, so they can be better together. However, that doesn’t stop her from being as close as she is. He may be watching her from his window, as afraid to approach her as she is to approach him, despite all of the lights in his house being off. She can’t imagine he sleeps much anyway.

            But then, she hears his agonized scream fill the air, a loud crash sounding afterwards. And before she can rethink it, she’s up and sprinting towards his front door. Without ever being in his house, she knows it will be unlocked—the only things he has to fear are the things within his isolated walls.

            He hears the thump, thump, thumping of feet on the stairs, quickly ascending on him. It takes him a while to gather his bearings, but at the last minute, when his attacker races through the room, he pins them to the wall and strangles them.

            The red melts away, because he’s caught them, they can’t hurt him. But it’s as that red melts away that he sees who his attacker is. And he holds tighter as her face turns blue because he wants to kill Katniss Everdeen.

He may have failed the first time, but this time he will not let her win.

And she closes her eyes.

He wonder if she’s dead or just passed out, because her grip on him loosens until her hands are laying limply around his wrists. She gasps, despite herself, and be knows what she’s doing. She’s surrendering. And he doesn’t like it.

            When he releases her, he convinces himself that it’s because he didn’t want her to give up so easily.

He convinces himself that the red takes over—he did not let her win.

            She gasps for breath, but all of that seems background to his ever so conflicting thoughts. He’s used to keening for her, used to silently hoping to brush his lips against hers, to have her affections. But her showing up at his house, that is not something he’s used to.

“Peeta.” It is said in a hoarse whisper, but to him it is an angel’s kiss. And in that moment the horror of what he’d done a second time seeped into his cognizance.

            He backs away slowly, measuring her reaction, the lingering fear induced by his hijacked brain and not his aching heart. His heart pounds in his ears, and she tries to say his name again, but he’s already gone.

 

            He tries to run. Down the stairs, he almost falls; from his porch; and then he’s lost. He wouldn’t make it to the meadow, with his leg and all, but even besides that, he has to admit that the woods scare him. He can’t go to Haymitch—she’ll find him. He doesn’t want to run into town, people will fright.

            So as he stands, five yards from his house, trying to decide how to escape his lover (ally, friend, mutt…) and figure out if that’s actually what he’s running from—is it himself—Katniss is able to sneak up behind him. He tries to blame in on his frantic state of mind, but truly, she’s always been able to take him by surprise.

            She touches his shoulder lightly, and before she can think better of it he jumped back, far back, his hands clenched into fists as he tries to hold back from himself.

“Peeta,” she says again. It’s all he can do to stay where he is—he’s not sure what he’d do if he were close to her.

“Go home, Katniss,” he says, his eyes tightly shut. “Please.”

            She doesn’t respond, but after a while, he opens his eyes to see her face a hairsbreadth from his. “I’m not going anywhere,” she says, and does the last thing he’d expect her to do after he just strangled her. She kisses him.

Her hands slip into his hair before he can pull away, before he can think to protest. Because she loves him, and he can’t push her away anymore. He moans as if he’s wounded, relishing her lips against his but not kissing back, keeping his hands clenched at his sides.

            And when she pulls away, he sees in her eyes the ashes of their past. He sees eyes hurt beyond her years. He sees eyes that are genuine and strong and completely Katniss.

“I’m staying here. I’m not going anywhere. So stay with me,” she whispers, her eyes storming, pleading.

“Always,” he says, his heart swelling with yearning. Because he would do anything for Katniss Everdeen.


End file.
